Aliya Sternstein reports: Security weaknesses in the computers that track money for the Homeland Security Department could lead to a substantial mistake in the agency’s financial statements, according to a federal audit. KPMG analysts hired by the DHS inspector general to assess the department’s various financial systems for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, found about…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Is Texas the New Federal Government? Nationwide Breach Notification Law Signed by Governor Perry Suggests So
Jake Sommer writes: Texas has never been known as a state that loves to regulate and its current governor has made a name for himself by being staunchly anti-regulation, but its recent Texas Security Breach Bill (HB 300), contains a sneaky provision that turns the Texas Attorney General into one of the nation’s most powerful…
UK: Council blunders put personal data at risk
Simon Murphy reports: Personal details of more than 16,000 residents were lost when a council’s computer memory stick went missing. A series of data protection blunders by West Sussex County Council since 2008 have left the personal information of children and adults at risk. Children’s case material, court records, and social care reports were among 60 breaches,…
Two years later, Texas parent who reported a breach gets prosecutors off his back and his laptop returned
A Texas parent who reported a school district security breach involving sensitive student records spent the next two years facing federal charges and trying to get his laptop back Back in August 2009, DataBreaches.net reported that a parent had his work and personal computers seized by the FBI after he reported a security breach to his…
Survey Says Only 18 Percent of Colleges Believe Their Security Access Control Is Effective
Data from independent research, Effective Management of Safe & Secure Openings & Identities, shows 82 percent of public, private and 2-year specialized colleges and universities believe they are not very effective at managing safe and secure openings or identities. Only 18 percent believe they are very effective at granting or denying access to appropriate individuals or…
Breaches: Study Shows Over 806.2 Million Records Disclosed, Estimated Cost of $156.7 Billion
I’m still playing catch-up with everything I missed thanks to NatGrid’s profound incompetence in restoring power after a tropical storm knocked us offline. Here’s a press release I had missed: The Digital Forensics Association announces the release of their second annual data breach report. “The Leaking Vault 2011- Six Years of Data Breaches” analyzes 3,765…